Christmas book gifts to go wild for

Most people nowadays have more material possessions than they need and it’s almost impossible to select suitable Christmas presents for them. One option is to give books, so here are a few suggestions.

I have to declare a personal interest in my first selection. Mike Brown’s ‘Images of Irish Nature’ is an exquisite photographic celebration of nature, but two of the essays included in it have been written by Outdoors columnists; Damien Enright and myself. We shouldn’t, even indirectly, promote our work, but when readers see Mike’s stunning photographs, they will understand why this book just had to be featured here.

Mike, the winner of a plethora of photographic awards, published his ‘Ireland’s Wildlife — A Photographic Essay’ to great critical acclaim in 2002. ‘Images of Irish Nature’ presents a new series of pictures, covering aspects of the natural world from landscapes and lightning to mammals and mushrooms. In a once-in-a-lifetime shot, a swallow is pictured feeding baby wrens. The wrens had taken over the swallow’s nest, so the evicted couple promptly built a new semidetached one beside it.! Éamon de Buitléar, in a foreword to the book, examines the challenges facing wildlife photographers, while Gordon D’Arcy, Padraig Whooley, Juanita Browne and Micheal Viney contribute interesting essays.